International carrier Pacnet has revealed a plan to build a submarine cable linking Chennai in India with Singapore and Malaysia, with potential extensions to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, under the name West Asia Crossing (WAC), reports Telecom Asia. The USD150 million cable will be ready for service by early 2012, with initial design capacity of 6Tbps-8Tbps, interconnecting with Pacnet’s existing EAC-C2C submarine network, the operator said. Pacnet expects to award a contract to an undersea cable provider early next year, whilst it is in talks with potential operator partners for joint funding of the rollout, although it is also considering self-funding the entire project.
Meanwhile, Pacnet says it has successfully applied for Indian national long-distance and international long-distance (NLD and ILD) telecoms licences, and is planning to establish a new point of presence (PoP) in Chennai to serve as an international gateway. Work should be complete by Q3 2010, around which time the operator will launch Ethernet international private line, IP VPN and other managed services in India. The new WAC cable design will also allow extensions to enable further landing points in India.